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A40
news
Guardian www.guardian.co.tt Friday, December 13, 2013
The UN says it is "extremely concerned" for Syr-
ian refugees in Lebanon as a fierce winter storm
bears down.
There has been snow, rain, high winds and freezing
temperatures in the north of the country and the
Bekaa Valley, home to more than 200 informal camps.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
said it was "working harder than ever" to protect
the more than 800,000 Syrians sheltering in Lebanon.
"We are worried, because it is really cold in the
Bekaa region, and we re extremely worried about the
refugees living in makeshift shelters, because many
are really substandard," UNHCR spokeswomen Lisa
Abou Khaled told the AFP news agency.
At least 80,000 refugees will have to spend the
winter in tents. Many others are living in unfinished
or unheated buildings with only slightly more pro-
tection.
Ms Abou Khaled said the UNHCR had stockpiles
of items to help refugees whose shelters might be
damaged or destroyed, including plastic sheeting,
floor mats, blankets and mattresses. Supplies have
also been given to local councils.
"The Syrian refugees here are shivering with cold,
especially the ones in tents," said Wafiq Khalaf, a
councillor in Arsal, a town in the northern Bekaa
Valley that has seen 20,000 people arrive in the past
few months.
"Water has come into the tents from the roofs,
and from the ground where there is flooding," he
told AFP. "At the moment there is more than 3.9
inches of snow on the ground, but more is expect-
ed."
The BBC s Jim Muir in the Bekaa Valley met one
family who were feeding their fire with old shoes
because they could not afford firewood, despite their
children being barefoot.
There are similar scenes across the region as hun-
dreds of thousands of refugees improvise desperately
to stay alive, our correspondent adds.
The latest warning comes after the UNHCR
announced on Tuesday that it would be airlifting
food and other aid items into northern Syria from
Iraq for the first time.
Twelve planeloads of supplies will be flown in over
the next few days, ahead of what the UN fears will
be the region s harshest winter in a century.
The decision was made after land convoys were
shot at, harassed, and detained at check points, offi-
cials said. BBC
Syrian refugee
children play near a
snowman in a
camp for Syrians
who fled their
country's civil war,
in the Bekaa valley,
eastern Lebanon,
yesterday.
AP PHOTO
Syrian refugee children at a refugee camp in
Lebanon's Bekaa Valley on Wednesday.
Syrian
refugees in
Lebanon hit by
winter storm